(The Center Square) – Memphis residents are getting a chance to tell Mayor Paul Young and council members how they want tax dollars from the xAI over the next six weeks, but a cloud still hangs over the project.
Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer was announced last year and unlike other projects, it is not receiving tax breaks. An ordinance before the Memphis City Council would invest 25% of the tax revenue into communities within five miles of the project and into another community that is the site of a future project.
The money would go toward fixing roads, improving or adding sidewalks and affordable housing and home repairs, according to Young.
“We want this to be what neighborhood investment should look like-visible, local, life changing,” Young told the council on Tuesday. “We want kids to be able to walk to school safely. We want seniors to be able to stay in their homes. This is about bringing dignity back to the community, neighborhoods that have been overlooked for far too long.”
Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the xAI project. The Southern Environmental Law Center confirmed to The Center Square that it is keeping a promise made last month to sue the city. The organization and others cite concerns about gas turbines they say will add to air pollution problems already in the area. The Shelby County Health Department approved 15 gas turbines last week.
“The Shelby County Health Department’s approval of the xAI air permit is a stark reminder that our community’s health continues to be compromised for profit,” said LaTricea Adams, CEO and president of Young, Gifted & Green, in a news release issued by the Southern Environmental Law Center. “We will not stand by while our air quality deteriorates and the voices of Black, marginalized communities are silenced.”
Tests conducted by a third party commissioned by the city showed that levels of benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter were far beneath any level of health concern, according to a news release. The city will continue to test the air quality, Young said.
“The city doesn’t control air quality regulations, but we stepped up to find answers,” he said.
Thomas Pyle of the American Energy Alliance said he trusts that the city wants projects that do not harm the community.
“With all energy projects there are trade-off,” Pyle said in an interview with The Center Square. “But with today’s technology and today’s environmental regulations and laws both at the federal and state level, we have seen a measurable improvement in the very pollutants that are being referred to in the Law Center’s threatened lawsuit. It’s also interesting and ironic that the law center wants to confuse the public. Clearly they tested for ozone, they tested for components of the ozone. And they determined that they were OK with the project.”
Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford Sr. said during Tuesday’s meeting that the xAI project is just the beginning of something that could expand to other communities.
“This may be the best thing that happened to Memphis,” Ford said. “We may be able to survive when others won’t,” Ford said.
The lawsuit could hurt those expansion efforts, Pyle said.
“You know there are many places in the country where data centers are being built and there are many places in the country where they’ll continue to be build because they’ll have buy-in from their communities,” Pyle said. “If the Law Center is successful in confusing the public, if they’re successful in trying to create controversy where I don’t’ see any exist, then it may deter future projects.”
Pyle said if he had questions about the testing and its adequacy, he would feel differently.
“I would never want a city to overlook environmental impacts for their communities,” Pyle said. I think it’s an important role for public officials to ensure and balance economic needs and job creation with environmental protection. So if the state or the city were to overlook and just take shortcuts in that regard, I wouldn’t be supportive of the effort.”
Pyle said he is confident that Memphis has “checked all the boxes.”
Young and the council are moving forward with a plan to allow the community to have a say in how the tax revenue is spent. The City Council is required to have three readings on the ordinance proposed by Young, putting its final approval six weeks away.
